1808–1819, May: (The Pacification Campaigns and the Death of Goman): Only once, at Habitation Beaumont back of Corail in 1808, was Goman ever brought to batt…

1808–1819, May: (The Pacification Campaigns and the Death of Goman): Only once, at Habitation Beaumont back of Corail in 1808, was Goman ever brought to battle against his intentions, where Borgella fought the guerrillas to a standstill and captured one of Goman’s lieutenants, Jean-Baptiste Lagarde, whom the government promptly suborned as a counterinsurgent leader — yet under Lagarde and the special corps of Éclaireurs organized on Pétion’s personal instructions, trap after trap and ruse after ruse all failed. When Rigaud entered the South in 1810, he attempted to pacify Goman, whom he knew well, but three months later Goman had not only remained at large but had brought the whole corps of Éclaireurs back over in a body; following this coup, in 1811 Christophe — impressed with Goman’s troublemaking capabilities — dubbed him Count of Jérémie and général de brigade and supplied him with arms. By 1812, Goman was at his summit at Grand-Doko, beneath the mountains appropriately named Les Mamelles, where he maintained both headquarters and court, including a seraglio and a ceremonial dais and throne on which, adorned with a triple-plumed chapeau, he held audience. After Christophe’s 1812 foray into the West had been turned back, Pétion sent Bazelais into the Grand’Anse with typically politic instructions: use minimum force, reassure the noirs that the republic did not intend a war of castes, and break up plantations and distribute land to disaffected peasants — and although Bazelais failed to extinguish the insurrection, he confined it and laid the groundwork for ultimate pacification. At the end of May 1819, encircled at Grand-Doko by six regiments under Bazelais and Borgella sent by Boyer, Goman was observed at bay on a cliff by a patrol of Borgella’s; the soldiers fired and Goman jumped or fell — no one will ever know — into a jungle chasm a thousand feet below, and his body was never found, thus ending the thirteen-year insurrection of the Grand’Anse.